


The Corner Delivers

by theianitor



Category: Formula 1 RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Bakery and Coffee Shop, Fluff, M/M, Mentions others
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-21
Updated: 2016-08-21
Packaged: 2018-08-09 10:05:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,435
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7797601
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theianitor/pseuds/theianitor
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Corner Café serves coffee, baked goods, and 'sarnies' and does very good business. So good that the delivery boy needs extra help. Too bad the new guy can't talk to the resident baker; they seem to rather like each other...</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Corner Delivers

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Charante_Leclerc](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Charante_Leclerc/gifts).



> This turned out kinda fluffy. :)

The little bell chimed cheerfully above his head and he turned around and locked the door. Rain pattered against the large windows and it was still dark outside. Jenson was quite probably the only one awake at this hour that was happy to be at work. Leaving the lights off he walked through the shop and into the kitchen, taking a deep breath before starting the prep for the day.

A few hours later the rain was still pouring down outside, but the first trays of rolls were done and the kitchen was nice and warm.

“I hate English weather,” Mark greeted as he strode across the kitchen, taking out the breads and fillings for the student specials.

“Rain is good, brings people in for tea and hot chocolate.” Jenson turned the radio down a little and they chatted as they worked, Jenson getting started on the pies and cakes that would sell later in the day while Mark prepped fillings and toppings.

The ‘student specials’ were yesterday’s baked goods and sandwiches, sold at reduced prices to half-awake students who all took their coffee black and to go and didn’t care much what lay between the slices of bread as long as it was cheap. After them, the rest of the early breakfast-crowd came along: office workers with umbrellas, briefcases, and the morning paper who wanted tea, coffee and simple belly-fillers. Orders for cheese, ham, tomatoes – the occasional adventurous ciabatta with brie were quickly filled. Next, Daniel appeared.

“If it gets any wetter I’ll be needing a jet ski,” he said, his trainers squeaking against the floor and his hair even curlier than usual.

 

\--

 

It had taken them a few hard years to get here. The Corner Café was originally Mark’s, a little place where people came for coffee or a light lunch, choosing from what Mark lovingly called ‘sarnies’. Jenson had been a regular while trying to keep his head above water in university, and he had taken down Mark’s sign requesting help not even an hour after the Australian had put it up. He was fascinated with baking and seemed to relish the early mornings, long hours, and punishing tempo. Soon enough the store-bought breads were history and Mark had to add another blackboard to list all the sweet baked goods.

Two years ago Mark had met Daniel, a fellow Aussie with a winning smile and an inordinate amount of energy. He had dropped out of school and was making money as a bike messenger. Inspired by several days of skidding to a stop outside at lunchtime, getting a sandwich to go and riding back to base only to have his food stolen by a co-worker, he figured he might as well become the delivery service. He made a deal with Mark to get good prices and advertised to the nearby offices, and soon enough he was delivering subs in batches to be able to keep up.

 

\--

 

“Come on, I thought you Aussies were supposed to be tough! It’s just a bit of rain.” Jenson said, slapping Daniel’s hand away as he reached for one of the still-warm cookies on the counter.

“Easy for you to say, you don’t have to go out in this.” He waited until Jenson had turned away before stealing the desired cookie, quickly hiding it in his messenger bag.

“I wanted to talk to you actually,” he said, turning to Mark. “I’ve been thinking about... expanding.”

“Expanding?” Mark stopped the slicer and wiped his hands on his apron.

“Yeah, getting more people in. I’m barely making it through the lunch rush on my own mate, I need another set of legs.”

“Well that’s completely up to you, you’re your own boss. I mean, it’s a good idea, but it’s up to you.”

“I just wanted you guys to approve.” When Mark stole a cookie from the tray, Daniel did too. Jenson sighed and gave up, going over to them and taking a cookie for himself.

“I appreciate that,” Mark said, “and if you want to place an ad in the window or something...”

“What?” Daniel looked a little confused. “Oh, no, I’ve already got someone.” Jenson laughed and Mark sighed. This was typical Daniel.

“I just wanted to check in with you first. He’s coming in tomorrow to do the lunch-ride with me.”

“Who is it?” Mark asked.

“Name’s Sebastian, I met him at Uni. Kinda bookish, you know, he’s been helping me with my accounting but he could use the extra money and he has his own bike.”

 

At eleven sharp the next day, Sebastian Vettel set foot in the Corner Café for the first time. He wasn’t much for cafés and coffee-shops, but he had to admit the place was charming. As soon as he opened the door the smell of freshly baked bread and hot coffee enveloped him and he was suddenly hungry. There were two big windows, one with a display of bread and cakes, the other with a raised table in front of it so people could have their coffee and look out onto the street.

There weren’t a lot of tables occupied but Sebastian thought that was probably about to change; Daniel had explained that it got ridiculously busy around lunch. Right now there were a couple of boys at one table, seemingly doing homework with a bunch of papers spread out in front of them. In the far corner Seb saw three girls all sharing one laptop, not talking but completely focused on whatever was on the screen in front of them. The one in the middle, a girl with thick-rimmed glasses, looked up and saw him looking. She said something to the others. Now they were all looking at him. He went over to the counter.

“May I take your order?” The young man behind the counter had a pretty thick accent, and Sebastian would have guessed he was French. He was smiling politely.

“Eh... hi? I’m supposed to meet Daniel..?” The smile couldn’t have disappeared from the guy’s face any quicker. He quirked an eyebrow.

“You are not here for coffee?”

“No?”

“Next!” he said, completely ignoring Sebastian and motioning for the lady behind him to step forward. Sebastian moved to the side and stood there awkwardly. The girls in the far booth were looking at him again.

“Seb, hey!” he didn’t think he’d ever been so happy to hear Daniel’s voice. Daniel came out from behind the counter, already in his lycra shorts and a t-shirt that read ‘Corner Delivers!’. Sebastian heard giggling and noticed the girls were looking at Daniel now. As they walked back behind the counter, Daniel shot the booth a wide smile and a wave. The giggling went up a notch.

Sebastian came through to a kitchen that smelled even more delicious.

“This is Mark, the owner.” Daniel said, introducing a tall, dark-haired man with a very square jaw. He wiped his hands before giving Sebastian a firm handshake.

“Hiya.” He was definitely Australian.

“... and that’s Jenson, the baker-in-chief.” Sebastian didn’t know what he’d been expecting. Probably someone older. Fatter. Not a handsome guy with light brown hair and a slightly lopsided smile, his hand halfway towards Sebastian like he had been intending to shake hands but gotten stuck.

“Eh... hi.” Sebastian squeaked. Daniel gave him a slightly worried look.

“Well... let’s get going, yeah?” he said, taking Seb out to where he kept his bike. On his way out, Seb stumbled on the threshold.

“Don’t get run over!” Mark offered as a goodbye.

 

\--

 

A week after that, Sebastian had gotten used to coming in through the kitchen rather than going through the shop. Mark was nowhere to be seen and Daniel was late, but Jenson was there, cutting strips of dough and making lattice-tops for three pies in front of him.

“Good morning.”

Jenson just smiled and nodded at him.

“Apple?” Sebastian asked. Jenson nodded again.

“They look tasty.” Sebastian dared when the other man hadn’t said anything for a few seconds. Thinking about it, he realized they had never had a proper conversation.

“They are mate.” Sebastian jumped as Mark came into the kitchen with a box, his voice very loud in the quiet kitchen. Daniel came in after him and they started loading the delivery-boxes with sandwiches and subs.

“Where’s your lycra?” Mark suddenly asked. Jenson sounded like he was choking over by his pies.

“Lycra?” Sebastian was confused.

“Yeah Dan always wears those shorts, great for biking... and the girls out front. I thought that’d rub off on you.”

“I... eh... uhm...” Sebastian struggled, his face bright red. Daniel laughed, and they left to get started on deliveries. Mark rounded on Jenson with a shrewd glint in his eyes.

“You fancy him.”

 

\--

 

Jenson and Mark were permanent fixtures at the Corner whereas a lot of the servers and baristas came and went. Lately Romain had made the coffee-station something of his own little kingdom, but he worked fast and made little designs in the milky foam that people ooh-ed and aah-ed over, so Mark didn’t mind. He also got along well with Jev, who had been taking more and more shifts lately, much to the joy of the clique of art-students that usually occupied one of the booths in the back. Hanna, shy and polite, was perfect for the moms and the slightly older customers of the brunch-shifts whereas Carmen’s slightly louder personality worked well with the afternoon-crowd.

Everyone was always friendly enough with each other, and Jenson was usually talking up a storm. It hadn’t taken Mark long to notice that he clammed up completely around Sebastian however and the Aussie didn’t need to be told what that was about. Soon enough the others had caught on too and Jenson came in for a fair bit of teasing, all in the name of ‘trying to help’.

Mark kept making him help Daniel and Sebastian, and kept offering Sebastian cookies and cupcakes to see Jenson get flustered when he praised them. Hanna and Carmen kept trying to draw them both into conversations only to leave them soon thereafter, whereupon Sebastian and Jenson would awkwardly stammer their way through excuses to stop talking. At Halloween everyone else was getting ghosts and pumpkins dusted on top of their hot chocolates and lattes – somehow Jenson and Sebastian always ended up with hearts on theirs. When Jenson asked Romain about it the Frenchman shrugged and said he needed the practice.

They weren’t opposed to being around each other though, Mark noticed. Quite the opposite. It was just the talking that was a problem. While they were around the others it was pretty much fine, and they would often sit next to each other if they had some downtime. Much to the joy of the little cyber-coven in the booth in the back, the two kept glancing at each other and if one caught the other looking they would both blush and get very awkward. Mark was fairly sure the girl with the glasses was taking notes on their progress, or lack thereof.

 

\--

 

“Just ask him out!” Mark groaned in frustration one day when Daniel and Sebastian had just left for their daily deliveries. “Put yourself out of my misery.”

“I... can’t.”

“No I’ve realized you can’t mate, because you can’t even bloody say three words to him before you apparently forget you both speak English.” He left the kitchen and came back with two cups of something steamy that smelled of cinnamon.

“I don’t know what it is,” Jenson said, taking a sip of the ‘seasonal special’ Romain had cooked up. “I just... I can’t think of anything to say.”

“So don’t say anything, just kiss him or something! What are you worried about anyway?” Jenson was about to answer but Mark cut in before him.

“And don’t you dare say ‘rejection’ mate because I could go out there and ask any one of the customers, and _they’d_ tell me you two are all lovey-dovey and meant to be.”

Mark hoped Jenson’s silence didn’t mean his inability to speak to Sebastian had spread into not being able to even talk _about_ Sebastian.

 

\--

 

The last few days before the Corner shut for Christmas were hectic. Jenson had brought in everyone he knew who could be trusted with a rolling pin to help make all the seasonal treats. He had decided that the next time they got a break, a chance to sit down together, he was at least going to talk to Sebastian. Only a few hours later he regretted his decision as they sat down for lunch and everyone else suspiciously disappeared.

“So...” his voice felt loud and weird. He could hear the bustle of the shop, the Christmas-music playing, the familiar hiss and bubble of someone foaming milk.

“What are you doing over the holidays?” Good start, he thought. It was normal and logical to ask that. Sebastian had looked a little apprehensive but now his face lit up.

“I got tickets to go home from my parents, so I can spend Christmas and New Year’s with them in Germany! It’ll be great to see them again, it’s been a while and...”

Sebastian talked on excitedly and Jenson couldn’t help but stare. That smile made his heart flutter. Sebastian seemed so happy but he soon settled down and went quiet after looking up at the older man again.

“What about you?”

“Just going home to see my folks and my sisters for Christmas... then I’m back here again, then a few days off for New Year’s too. We’ll probably have a New Year’s Party, last year we were at Mark and Ann’s and...” he looked up and fell silent. Sebastian was looking at him like what he was saying was the most interesting thing in the world.

They sat in silence for a long time before Jenson moved just a little closer and slowly put his hand on top of Sebastian’s. A second later they flew apart as Daniel came trundling in, singing along to the Christmas music in the shop, wearing a Santa hat with blinking lights on it.

 

\--

 

Over the holidays Sebastian decided to grab the bull by the horns when he came back. He just had to figure out how to do it. The first few days back it was all getting back to the routine, getting his legs to agree to the exercise again, talking about what everyone had been up to for the holidays. The New Year’s Eve party sounded like it had been good fun and he was a little sad to have missed it.

 

“What’cha get him?” Daniel asked one day, and Sebastian had probably missed a big part of the conversation because he didn’t understand what he meant.

“Get... who?”

“Jenson! For his birthday!” Sebastian’s heart sank.

“Mate...” Daniel said ruefully, “... that face says you forgot. It’s his thirtieth!”

“When..?”

“Tomorrow.”

Sebastian spent the rest of the day worrying about getting Jenson a present at all. On his way home that afternoon he passed the cinema, and in complete desperation went in and bought a gift card for two tickets to the movies. How lame.

 

He had hoped to give Jenson his admittedly terrible present in relative privacy. For a while he even considered just leaving the gift card without his signature, so nobody would know who it was from. Daniel however made him sign the card as soon as he found out about it, and Mark and the rest of the staff made an announcement just after lunch-time that it was the head baker’s thirtieth birthday. Everyone sang happy birthday, the customers clapped and cheered, and Jenson looked positively overjoyed at all the attention.

When Jenson turned the gift card over and read Sebastian’s name, he just smiled.

“It’s for two tickets.” Sebastian felt the need to explain. “So you can take whoever you want...”

“Yeah and if any one of you so much as _looks_ at that other seat, you’re fired.” Mark said, pointing at the rest of the staff.

“Mark, what...” Jenson said, his face red. Everyone else was smiling, Hanna looked about ready to cry with joy and Kevin, who had only started working right before Christmas, gave Sebastian a broad grin and two thumbs up. Sebastian blushed.

“Just putting the both of you out of my misery mate.” Mark grinned. “Alright you slackers, back to work!”

There was talking and laughing as they dispersed, the regular sounds of the shop taking over again. Jenson looked at his card.

“So... ehm...”

“Yeah,” Sebastian said.

“Friday?”

“Yeah,” Sebastian repeated. Jenson smiled and walked back into the kitchen. It took Sebastian a minute to understand that they had just made plans for their first date.

 

\--

 

They met up outside the cinema and Sebastian didn’t even pay attention to what movie Jenson got tickets to. He paid for popcorn and sodas though – it was a birthday present after all.

“I’m not usually this... quiet,” Sebastian said, taking his popcorn from the cashier. Jenson seemed relieved.

“Me either.”

“I hate people who talk during the movie though.” He was happy to see Jenson smile broadly at his words.

“Me too.”

 

They sat down and it got dark. The movie had only just started when Sebastian felt Jenson’s hand seeking his out, intertwining their fingers. About half-way through the movie they were both mostly ignoring, Sebastian moved as close as he could, putting his head on Jenson’s shoulder. When the lights came back on they both had most of their snacks left, and neither had spoken at all.

 

It had started snowing while they were inside, white powder covering the sidewalk and making everything bright and glittery. It felt completely natural to hold hands again as they walked together. Sebastian didn’t know where Jenson lived, but if he was asked right now, walking the other home would definitely have been part of the birthday present.

“I had a really good time tonight.” Jenson broke the silence, coming to a stop and turning so they were face to face.

“Me too.” Seb couldn’t think of anything more to say. He was looking into Jenson’s eyes and couldn’t move. They were standing so close together that he thought it must be completely in order to hug or kiss or something but he couldn’t move.

“... can I kiss you?” Jenson’s voice was barely louder than the falling snowflakes and it took Sebastian a second to register what he had said. Still not trusting his voice, he nodded.

Jenson leaned in closer, so close the tips of their cold noses were touching before he tilted his head just a little to the right. There was a moment of standing so dangerously close but still not quite being there, a moment where nothing had happened yet, a moment that felt like an eternity where Sebastian was afraid Jenson had changed his mind and Jenson thought his heart might just explode if it beat any faster.

Their lips finally met in a kiss that they were both holding back, neither wanting to scare the other off, not when everything suddenly felt so perfect and there was nothing wrong in the world. Sebastian’s hands closed on the lapels of Jenson’s coat, holding on tight because he was sure he was about to fall over. Jenson’s arms were around Sebastian, holding him close and he couldn’t help but smile into the kiss because everything was spinning in the most delightful way.

He pulled back, looking down at Sebastian who still had his eyes closed. His lips were a little parted and still looked wet, begging to be kissed again.

“Seb.” It wasn’t more than a whisper but Seb’s eyes flew open. Jenson tenderly stroked his cheek. “Breathe.” The younger man inhaled sharply.

“Can we go out again?” he blurted out, and Jenson started laughing.

“I’d like that, yeah.”

They stood there a little while longer, neither saying anything but just looking at each other as the snow kept falling around them.

“Want to come inside?” Jenson finally broke the silence and Sebastian realized they were outside The Corner.

“I...” Sebastian really wanted to say yes, but his sense of duty won out. “I can’t, I have work tomorrow.”

“Yeah I thought I’d get an early start,” Jenson joked. “Really though, I could use a cup of tea. You sure you don’t want to..?”

Sebastian didn’t need any more convincing. While Jenson prepared two cups of tea he lifted two chairs down from a table and they ended up sitting together in the empty coffee shop, drinking tea and talking through the night.

 

\- The End -

**Author's Note:**

> All in good fun, as per usual!  
> Thanks for the read! :)


End file.
